At this point in the season, it is painfully obvious that the Nationals will not be in contention for a postseason appearance come September. The Nationals’ near-.500 record, especially their peak record of 20-15 on May 13, gave Nationals fans illusions of grandeur. Realistically, the team should not win more than 75 games. Keeping this harsh reality in mind, it will be fun to see how M...

Imagine for one second that the Nationals had a legitimate leadoff hitter. Instead of with two outs and nobody on, Ryan Zimmerman steps into the batters box with a runner on second base and one out. Since this is our imagination, allow us to be even more optimistic. Zimmerman steps into the box and there are two men on and nobody out. What a turnaround.
There is an explanation for ...

Stephen Strasburg was definitely impressive on Tuesday night. From the moment he signed his contract on August 17, 2009, fans of baseball have been awaiting the phenom's debut. At 7:05, Strasburg finally delivered his first major league pitch: a 97 mile per hour fastball, inside to Andrew McCutchen. The crowd booed. They'll learn. Not every pitch that Strasburg throws is a strike.
I would...

Thursday’s 6-4 loss to the Houston Astros was the second heartbreaking loss in three days. The Nationals are now 26-29 through 55 games, which is still better than many baseball speculators predicted at the beginning of the year. Losing 3 of 4 games to the Astros certainly does hurt, but the Nationals should have come out of the series having learned a few lessons.
First and foremost is tha...

As a fan of one particular team, it is often hard to stay level-headed. It can be difficult to remain objective when discussing a particular series of events. Last night’s 8-7 loss is one of them. The game featured one poor pitching performance from Craig Stammen and one very strong performance by Brett Myers, which were both overshadowed by an eventful 9th inning. The Nationals were down...

It's easy and quite cliché to second guess a manager after a loss, so I plan on doing it anyway. My dad and I were in attendance for last night's game at CitiField. Upon being given a 3-run lead in the top of the first inning, I told my dad that I thought the game was pretty much wrapped up. A veteran pitcher like Scott Olsen should be able to hold the Mets offense to less than three runs. ...

There are two games that come close to how bad the Nationals played last night. The first is the home opener, an 11-1 loss to the Phillies. The low quality of play combined with Phillies fans overtaking Nationals Park and acting extremely rudely (not to generalize, but I have yet to hear anything good about the Phillies fans who came to Washington that day) make a very close second. The thir...

First of all, I am sorry for my long absence between blog posts. Final exams and the Canadiens have consumed my time.
I was planning on writing a post about how the Nationals are riddled by minor injuries to Ryan Zimmerman, Willie Harris, and Ivan Rodriguez. Then, Brian Bruney came into the game against the Cubs in the bottom of the 9th inning and proceeded to walk the leadoff batter. The ba...

Ok, fine, I am exaggerating a little bit.
Livan has made two starts this year.
April 11 @ NYM: 7.0 innings, 5 hits, 3 bb, 1 so, 88 pitches
April 17 vs. MIL: 9.0 innings, 4 hits, 2 bb, 3 so, 112 pitches
He won both, and here is why: the Nationals gave him an early lead, and Livan proceeded to pound the strike zone. Of the 200 pitches he has thrown, 121 of them have been strikes. The best wa...

Closers are over rated, but no one likes to challenge conventional thinking nowadays (save John Russell; see: Pitcher batting 8th). Specifically, every team has one setup man and one closer, as well as a hierarchy of relievers to pitch the 6th and 7th innings when the team is winning and losing.
Scrap it! Here’s what teams should do: match up the best reliever on the team with the other t...

If you don't read the Bloomberg Sports blog at MLBlogs.com, you should. It's extremely helpful if you play fantasy baseball and informative even if you don't.
There was a post written on Sunday about whether or not pitchers are worse in the first week of April (specifically April 5 through April 12 over the past five years) compared to the rest of the regular season. The results were surprisi...

Before you laugh at that title, consider this table:
Pitcher table
(I made it on my own, but it wouldn't fit into the body of the post.)
I apologize for the cluttered look. If you are confused, here is the gist: Chad Bradford is better than three of the relievers currently in the Nationals' bullpen.
Miguel Batista's last good year came in 2003, in which he posted a 3.49 FIP and 3.49 ERA in 19...